Ghosted: An American Story

by Nancy French

Since my multiracial family had taken a stance against Trump, we’d been mocked by Republicans, targeted by White nationalists, threatened with death, and alienated from our church community.

My unwillingness to bow the knee to an unsuitable president was the most American thing I’d ever done.

The alt right is not about ideas. It’s about stigmatizing perceived enemies and making them regret ever speaking out. It’s about control.

We’d thought many Christians were simply holding their nose to vote for Trump. Turns out, they quite liked him.

Idols have a way of gaining power over their acolytes, and they always demand sacrifice—often women and children.

But in 2017, I realized Trump was not the actual problem. He was merely a canary in a coal mine, an early indicator of the danger that was already all around us.

Though I’d been dismayed at the rise of Donald Trump, he was not the GOP’s main problem. He was simply an indicator that something was dangerously off. And the tone-deaf, calloused response to abuse kept coming up.

There is no statute of limitations on truth or for individual and institutional accountability.

To truly love our fellow Americans, we have to stop averting our eyes at the first sign of disagreement. We must look at them and truly see them. “With our imagination as well as our eyes,” writes Frederick Buechner, “like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces.”